Stanley kept looking for a while after Kylan left, at one point actually jumping the buck from its bed, but he couldn't get a shot as the animal moved away. Since it was getting late, he decided to let the wounded animal lie up for the night.

"Both of us went back the next morning," Kylan told me, "and we found him lying dead not that far from where my dad had jumped him. We actually found him at 11:20 that morning, or almost 24 hours exactly after I had shot him. He had gone nearly a mile and a half!"

The 12x13 buck, which weighed around 190 pounds, was officially scored at this year's Big Buck Classic in Little Rock. The dark, massive antlers measured 200 4/8 net B&C as a non-typical, which qualified the McCutcheon buck as the first Newton County whitetail to make the club's all-time record book. THE BEST OF THE REST
While these four (counting the "barbed-wire" buck) are the cream of the crop from 2004-05, lots of other great Natural State bucks were taken this past season.

Brett Thompson of Jonesboro took a 163 2/8 Craighead County typical that was the state's largest muzzleloader whitetail, while Kenny Pitcher of Knobel took a 171 7/8 non-typical up in Clay County that was the state's largest overall killed by crossbow. Both of these bucks point up the quality available up in the northeast regions of the state, where gun hunting is almost nonexistent.

Jackie Swindle Jr. of Mellwood chipped in another great non-typical, this one scoring 176 2/8, and Charles Barnett of Mount Pleasant took a 157 4/8 Independence County typical. Owen Rowland of Farmington took still another good Ozarks buck, a 184 6/8 non-typical bow kill. David Donaldson of Pine Bluff took the largest stick-and-string typical, an Arkansas County buck that netted 162 4/8 points. Any deer taken with a bow is a trophy, but these are truly exceptional. Arkansas archers have been re-writing the Pope & Young record book in recent years.

Starting off with Kylan McCutcheon's big buck, it was a great year for the state's younger hunters. Lukas McGhee of Stuttgart took a huge Monroe County non-typical that netted 185 2/8, and looked even larger. If your thing is mass, this buck had it. Andrew Plunkett of Memphis crossed the river to take the largest typical, a St. Francis County 5x5 that netted 161 1/8, and young Greg Gibson of Marianna took a 156 5/8 buck in Lee County.

A number of women got into the big-buck act, though their gender was slightly less well represented than it has been in recent years. Kathy Eudy of Donaldson had the largest non-typical, with a Hot Spring County buck that netted 154 1/8, and Rita Allen of Wynne had the highest scoring typical at 148 0/8.

As these deer amply illustrate, the 2004-05 season was another banner year in terms of Arkansas big-buck production; the killing of four B&C deer certainly qualifies as impressive. But it's the quantity of "good" bucks taken that best illustrates the continuing upward trend in quality for Natural State ungulates. Furthermore, the fact that several of those came from the mountains, typically not known for their trophy production, can only bode well for the future.

Good hunting!